"I was really excited to write this article, because it gave me an excuse to really think about what beautiful code is. I still don't think I know, and maybe it's entirely subjective. I do think the two biggest things, for me at least, are stylistic indenting and maximum const-ness. A lot of the stylistic choices are definitely my personal preferences, and I'm sure other programmers will have different opinions. I think the choice of what style to use is up to whoever has to read and write the code, but I certainly think it's something worth thinking about. I would suggest everyone look at the Doom 3 source code because I think it exemplifies beautiful code, as a complete package: from system design down to how to tab space the characters." John Carmack himself replies in the comments.

Every single problem you have brought up and every solution has to be due to bad development practices in the vast number of cases.

I'd argue that whilst that may be true, all of the examples I've given demonstrate why VB is not a safe language to use. The fact that one can get away with writing such bad code in the first place is key. Come on - you have a Java background and VB is a good language over C#? Really? I respect that you have your own opinion and that you are writing the code you use, but my experience with working with varied VB shops tells me that I will never employ anyone to write code in VB going forward. All our VB is legacy and we are actively (though slowly) migrating it away from that language.